1. Field
The invention is in the field of manually operated devices and of methods for applying driving force to structural components of buildings during construction of the buildings.
2. State of the Art
A variety of manually operated devices have been developed for applying force to various structural components used in the construction industry, the simplest and best known being hammers for driving nails. When occasion has warranted, hammers have been employed for exerting driving force on other structural components, most recently in the driving of tongue and groove subflooring panels into mated interconnecting relationship in the laying of floors in the construction of dwelling houses and other buildings. Thus, it is almost universally the practice among building contractors and skilled workmen, such as carpenters, to drive the rather large panels of tongue and groove plywood used for subflooring by pounding with a sledgehammer on the free longitudinal edge face of a plank that is laid next to the grooved longitudinal edge face of the panel to be driven. Both panel and plank lie flatwise across a series of floor joists, a longitudinal edge face of the plank confronting the grooved longitudinal edge face of the panel. Pounding on the free longitudinal edge face of the plank drives the tongue of the opposite longitudinal edge face of the panel into the groove of the confronting longitudinal edge face of an already laid panel of such subflooring.
This has had its difficulties due to the length and width dimensions of standard sized panels of plywood (normally 8 feet by 4 feet) and by the tendency for such panels to be somewhat warped as supplied to the builder. In general, it has required the combined efforts of three men to successfully and satisfactorily accomplish the close interfitting relationship of tongue and groove required for a smooth floor. One man in the middle wields the sledgehammer, while the other men stand on or near opposite ends of the panel to be added, so as to flatten such panel against the floor joists as it is being driven into place.